True Up North Gatherings
Sno-Drift Rally: Holy #*$%! might be the first thing that comes to mind when you envision tricked-out Neons, Mazdas, Subarus and other cars hurtling down the snow- and ice-covered back roads around Lewiston. But eventually you’ll come round to the official descriptor of the race that brings speed junkies from all over the world to the North each January: the Sno-Drift Rally. (You can get back to “holy #*$%!” when you watch the race from the sidelines).
Tip-Up Town: Big lake, big party. That’s pretty much the thinking behind Tip-Up Town USA, the annual winter bash on Houghton Lake. About 50,000 people, a few hundred snowmobiles and dozens of shanties hit the ice for two wild weekends of ice fishin’, beer swillin’, frigid-water dippin’ and … uh, pony rides.
I-500: Hmmm, what to do with a WWII ammunition dump in Sault Ste. Marie in the dead of winter. What to do, what to do. I know! Dump 1.8 million gallons of water over it in subzero weather, make a one-mile track of solid ice, then race scads of souped-up snowmobiles around it 500 times! That’s what happened in 1969, and it’s been happening every year since in the Yooperific version of the Indianapolis 500. Want to watch this oldest, longest and fastest snowmobile endurance race in the world? Don your furry hat and Carhartts, bring a burn barrel (and a half-barrel), some lawn chairs and whatever else you need to withstand a weekend outdoors … in the U.P. … in February. The action always happens the first Saturday of the month. I-500.com.—L.T.
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